Monday, 9 September 2013

Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain' - Was It About One Of The AAA Crew?! (Top Five)

‘You’re so vain...you probably think this song is about you!’ Carly Simon’s biggest hit has – at various times – been referred to as about men in general, a combination of people or one specific person. A canny look at the narcissistic qualities of the men in Carly’s life, the singer-songwriter has very rightly refused to talk about the true subject of the song – although she has enjoyed dropping titbits to her fans down the years. She even allegedly revealed the person she was thinking of to the highest bidder at a celebrity charity auction in 2003, on the basis that the winner (Dick Esbersol, the president of NBC Sports) never told another soul. Carly has also revealed a ‘letter’ from the person’s name (first or last) every eight years or so, the letters now adding up to ‘a’ ‘e’ and ‘r’. A whole plethora of people have been linked to the song, not all of them AAA stars, with the list of possible subjects now said to include film star Warren Beatty, singer David Bowie or (the most likely candidate in my eyes) Carly’s muse and lifetime singing partner James Taylor (not the ‘a’ ‘e’ and ‘r’ in both the first and last of these names). Then again, it could be about someone we haven’t heard about at all – some acquaintance of Carly’s from before she was famous. There are still four very credible candidates amongst the AAA team of musicians, however, so for this week’s top four we’ve got our detective caps on and had a look at the evidence for each person. I doubt we’ll ever get a full and proper answer from Carly and if we do I doubt it’ll be just one person who inspired the song but still, there is evidence that points to all four of the following...

1) Cat Stevens

As we discussed in our issue two weeks ago, Cat and Carly were close. They were both working in the same Island studios in California, used the same producer (Paul Samwell Smith) and had birthdays very close together. Opinions differ as to whether the two were ‘just good friends’ or a genuine item for a short while, but the split between them seems to have come surprisingly suddenly (Cat leaving to become a tax exile in Brazil of all places)...at exactly the time (early 1972) that this song would have been written. As ‘evidence’ we also draw your attention to the fact that Carly had already written two songs for Cat by 1972 (‘Anticipation’ and ‘Legend In Your Own Time’); while both of these songs are deeply complimentary, Cat’s own song for Carly (‘Sweet Scarlet’) sounds regretful, even a tad guilty. The 1972 style Cat Stevens isn’t exactly what you might call ‘vain’, his near-death experience from TB in the late 1960s seemingly putting at end to that, but his 17-18 year old self was most certainly vain, eager to be seen with as many celebrities and talked about in as many gossip columns as possible, all whilst wearing the very best in frilly shirts. Cat also has two of the three ‘revealed letters’ in his name (‘A’ and ‘E’ - though not an ‘R’).

2) David Crosby
Although I’m such a fan I’ll defend David Crosby to the hilt over anything, if he does have a weakness it is for being slightly vain. I’ve not just selected someone at random here either – Crosby was a good friend of Carly’s (both he and Nash sing on lots of her albums and she in turn sings on their second joint album ‘Wind On The Water’) and if you treat this song as a joke rather than a put-down Crosby would make a lot of sense. As extra fuel to the fire, Carly admitted on an American show called ‘Soundcheck’ in 2009 that she’s added the ‘real’ inspiration’s name into the recording by placing it ‘backwards’. The event caused a lot of interest and speculation so the crew went through the whole crew checking for clues and confidently came up with the name ‘David’ (which could stand for Crosby, Bowie or maybe even Carly’s manager (and Neil Young’s manager) David Geffen. Carly’s denied this (she claims she was saying the word ‘ovid’, as in a greek mystery play and that the name she meant is another word entirely) – but that could have been because she didn’t want the person’s identity to be revealed so quickly and uneventfully. It’s also worth adding that David Crosby has the letters ‘A’ and ‘R’ in his name – although not the third and confirmative ‘E’.

3) Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger has never really been connected to the song recently, but suddenly became a major candidate when Carly revealed in 1983 that he’d sung un-credited backing vocals on the track (at the same time issuing a ‘denial’ that the song was about him). Mick would kind of fit though – he relishes his image as a strutting peacock playboy and is the same in private if any number of Stones books are to be believed (Keith Richards revealed in his autobiography of 2011 that the band had taken to calling him ‘Brenda’ in honour of all his hair creams and facial products). The fact remains, however, that Mick and Carly were casual acquaintances at best, the two only working together on this one occasion as far as we know – would Carly have really written about someone she only vaguely knew? That said, the fact that he was singing on this track rather than the other dozen or so people linked to this song would seem to raise him a bit higher in the list of likely candidates – and his name also features all three of the ‘reveal letters’ Carly has given over the years (‘A’ ‘E’ and ‘R’).

4) Art Garfunkel
One candidate who hasn’t been mentioned yet (as far as I know) is Art Garfunkel. He might not be the most obviously narcisstic member of the AAA bunch, but Art’s careful and rather obsessive nature has been known to drive his friends mad, including the time he spends doing his hair. Moreover, Carly said in an interview at the time that the person ‘might or might not be’ famous and that even if they were famous, they might not be someone the public necessarily thought of as being vain. Art was a good friend of Carly’s too, Art being an especially good friend of James Taylor, and the pair sang on each other’s records numerous times in the 1970s and 80s (indeed, Art’s such a regular he probably appears on more Carly Simon recordings than anyone barring her and James). He also has the three ‘reveal’ letters ‘A’ ‘R’ and ‘E’ in his name – the only person who does apart from Jagger and Beatty out of the dozen or so names on the ‘guilty’ list.
So, is one of our four candidates the guilty party? Are all of our candidates the combined inspiration for the song? Was the inspiration someone else entirely? (James Taylor is still the likeliest candidate, with all three letters to his name!) We will probably never know – but part of the fun of this song is with speculating, so let’s hope Carly never properly tells (although a few more clues to keep us guessing would be nice!) What’s more, if Carly ever re-records the song (again!) she can now add the line ‘You’re so vain – you probably think that Alan’s Album Archives article was all about you!’ And we’re vain enough to hope you’ll be back next week for some more news, views and music! See you then!

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About Me

Born in the nexus point of Britain (well, the Midlands anyway), the author has swapped the concrete paradise of Stafford for …the concrete paradise of Ormskirk/Skelmersdale.

Along the way he got a music GCSE and A level (including a national award for his composing work) and music theory grades 3-5, so he should at least vaguely know what he is talking about. He was also awarded an English and History degree from St Martin’s College in Carlisle for his research work and ability to make 3000-word essays quadruple in length overnight (Carlisle remains his spiritual home, whenever it isn’t raining – which is, sadly, most of the time).

Journalism wise his highlights have been writing possibly the worlds last article on Gene Pitney (which was due to have been published two days after he died), enthusing over debut singles by now semi-famous artists like The Editors, Feeder and Newton Faulkner and – the most worthy of all – told the world that Chico out of X Factor was an idiot with a loud voice and nobody should buy his single. Of course, everybody did and it made number one. His artistic crest is the following description of a record: ‘two parts melodious funk to one part Theolonious Monk’!

When not writing his past-times include moaning about continuity points on sci-fi programmes such as Dr Who, Blake's 7, Sapphire and Steel and Timeslip, vainly supporting Alonso through thick and thin in F1 racing, cursing at the Coalition for their sheer incompetence and lying down in a darkened room recovering from chronic fatigue attacks.

The author has spent approximately 31 and a half of his 32 years listening to music in some form or another (he was asleep for the other 6 months before you ask) and has been officially declared ‘monkeynuts’ after spending three months working at the Skills Exchange in Skelmersdale (which seemed like a lifetime). This website - which started off at its 'old' home at www.alansalbumarchives.moonfruit.com - is now six years old, has covered over 450 albums by various artists and has received in total more than 280,000 hits. You can hear the author's music, see his youtube videos (starring Max The Singing Dog) and read more of his awful puns and jokes about the Spice Girls by checking out the 'links' pages further down the site...

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Hello and welcome to our fourth special edition of our newsletter. Our past special editions have looked at AAA compilations (News and ...

List of links for main reviews per band

Please click here to read more articles from 'back issues' of album reviews from News, Views and Music, which are listed alphabetically by band and chronologically by album (please note this section is a pain to update so we only do it every so often – have a look bottom right at the ‘100 most recent articles’ if you’re after more to read!) Please note also that we still have about 100 records we haven’t covered yet – we should be finished this humungous project in about two years (depending on how many more Neil Young puts out between now and 2017!!!) so please be patient with us if we haven't got to your favourite yet (although if we haven’t and you really want to read it, then why now leave a comment and let us know and we’ll move it up the pile!) Please also see below this list for 'top five'/'top ten' articles. Happy reading - and, err, sorry about the eye strain!!! Updated as of April 2017